Settings game.xml FS25

[Snake Man]

I'm not a big fan of creating speculative web pages, but it would be highly unlikely that giants software suddenly change Farming Simulator 25 game.xml into something else, but hey anything is possible, I've seen people including giants doing stupid changes before for no apparent reason so once more info or the final game release comes out, we all just have to sit and wait.

FS25 game.xml should be the same as in FS17, FS19 and FS22, meaning game graphical configs like viewDistanceCoeff, lodDistanceCoeff and foliageViewDistanceCoeff are located in game.xml config file, these are essential edits for enjoyable and FPS performance balanced gaming.

See Settings game.xml FS22 PMC Tactical forum topic for details.

Stay tuned for more details as they slowly trickle from previews, reviews and such.

PMCTODO update this topic/post once fs25 has been released!

[Snake Man]

Just updated my editing computers Farming Simulator 25 (FS25) to v1.3 and adjusted in-game main menu options video settings a bit.

FS25 game.xml config file:

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        <scalability>
            <performanceClass>Low</performanceClass>
            <viewDistanceCoeff>1.250000</viewDistanceCoeff>
            <lodDistanceCoeff>0.500000</lodDistanceCoeff>
            <terrainLODDistanceCoeff>0.500000</terrainLODDistanceCoeff>
            <foliageViewDistanceCoeff>1.100000</foliageViewDistanceCoeff>
            <volumeMeshTessellationCoeff>2.000000</volumeMeshTessellationCoeff>
            <tyreTracksSegmentsCoeff>0.000000</tyreTracksSegmentsCoeff>
            <terrainQuality>Low</terrainQuality>
            <postProcessAA>Off</postProcessAA>
            <displacementViewDistanceCoeff>0.800000</displacementViewDistanceCoeff>
            <rainAmountMultiplier>0.150000</rainAmountMultiplier>
        </scalability>

Old settings dating back to FS17 game.xml settings are; lodDistanceCoeff, foliageViewDistanceCoeff, foliageDensitySlider and viewDistanceCoeff. In FS19 I have terrainLODDistanceCoeff, hmm so I'm wondering am I just not understanding but aren't there supposed to be a new configuration option for foliage, according to FS25 v1.3 changelog:

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Added separate control of foliage LOD distance to allow larger foliage view distances without hurting the performance too much

Separate... hmm but unless I'm mistaken foliageViewDistanceCoeff has been in the game since FS17, was it just hidden from the in-game main menu options or what does that FS25 changelog mean?

[Snake Man]

New post from Giants CEO Stegei:

Unfortuantely, the new foliageLODDistanceCoeff is not exposed in the gui yet. This will be added in the next patch.
In the previous versions, this was always the same as the foliageViewDistanceCoeff, making it a lot more expensive the increase the foliageViewDistanceCoeff since it would also increase the draw distance the for the polygon heavy close up detail lods. If you want to have the same behavior as in 1.2.1, you can manually change the foliageLODDistanceCoeff property in the game.xml to be the same as the foliageViewDistanceCoeff. Generally, I would not recommend this though, as the trade of between quality and performance is just not good. Increasing it slightly over the default value of course can make sense.

If you really want to have the best quality, you can also increase foliageLODDistanceCoeff to be even higher than the foliageViewDistanceCoeff, but that that can become very performance heavy very quickly.

-source Giants forum post.

And another post describing what these properties do:

viewDistanceCoeff: Draw distance of regular objects (trees, buildings, vehicles, etc.)
lodDistanceCoeff: Distance at which regular objects switch to lower lods
foliageViewDistanceCoeff: Draw distance of the foliage (crops, grass, etc.)
foliageLODDistanceCoeff: Distance at which foliage switches to lower lods
terrainLODDistanceCoeff: Distance at which the terrain switches to lower lods

-source Giants forum post.

[Snake Man]

Also I spotted these in my game.xml file:

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            <displacementViewDistanceCoeff>0.8</displacementViewDistanceCoeff>
            <rainAmountMultiplier>0.15</rainAmountMultiplier>

A quick search finds people saying that displacementViewDistanceCoeff is ground deformation view distance, I don't know. Also no idea how rainAmountMultiplier works besides the obvious.

[Snake Man]

lodDistanceCoeff 0.25 value is way too LOW.

This is my full game.xml settings:

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        <scalability>
            <performanceClass>Medium</performanceClass>
            <viewDistanceCoeff>3</viewDistanceCoeff>
            <lodDistanceCoeff>0.25</lodDistanceCoeff>
            <foliageViewDistanceCoeff>2</foliageViewDistanceCoeff>
            <foliageLODDistanceCoeff>0.25</foliageLODDistanceCoeff>
        </scalability>

What happens with lodDistanceCoeff being 0.25 is that several giants models, building, vehicles, vehicle tires etc, disappear even as they are a mere "stone throws away" from your location. So 0.25 is too low value, way too low. Sure if you want mega performance FPS then its great, but it looks horrific as large buildings and even some tractor type vehicles simply disappear almost right in front of you.

PMCTODO its my plan to edit this post with more better balanced lodDistanceCoeff value once I find it. Just wanted to make initial experience post right away, bring you the latest info.

Edit 1:

<lodDistanceCoeff>0.5</lodDistanceCoeff> since 0.25 was way too low I tried 0.5 next.

Value 0.5 was as expected, the most nearest 3D models now show up, but still within "reasonable distance" things disappear, for example that neuero massive 16 million liter drive-through grain bin complex is not visible when it clearly should be as its such an massive landscape object.

I have to conclude that some of the giants 3d model "clipDistance" values are all whacked, completely wrong numbers whether it being too big or too small. I've seen this sort of stuff before especially in community created 3d models. For example some vehicle shed indoor planks or "rafters" whatever they are called, those were showing "miles away" even though the building model, the outdoor "core" disappeared. This kind of bad clipDistance value use is quite common, you cant see that stuff in tiny little girlie men terrains with ultra video-preset.

Okay so next I switched to <lodDistanceCoeff>1</lodDistanceCoeff>, I don't know if this is default 100% value or what, doesn't really matter to me I'm testing floats (numbers) here. This 1 value in my current savegame testing conditions brought huge neuero 16 million liter grain bin complex to view, so overall at farm yard level this value looks to be quite good. However... at the distance I see few trees that are not visible, seems like tree objects have very short high detail LOD clipDistance value. That definitely saves some valuable performance FPS, but it doesn't look good on large terrains if trees are not visible within reasonable range. I'm not going to speculate which value would be the next best to use, at this point of my day I'll go with the 1.0 and see if I spot any more issues with it, as far as I can tell all the major 3d models are in view from my savegames farm yard.

Edit 2:

Testing value 1 in real savegame conditions I quickly discovered that neuero 16 million liter grain bin complex disappeared when I was field working on my furthest out field which was not that far off (sorry I have no scientific numbers to provide), it looked really bad as this big grain bin disappears and appears when you drive back and forth on the field. So while value 1 is conservative for performance benefit, I think its way too low considering how average giants and community made 3d model clipDistance values are configured.

Giants animal pigs 3d models are extremely poorly configured, they disappear very very close with value 1, it looks dumb as you can see tractors and other vehicles far further out but your pigs disappear literally a stone throws away from your camera viewpoint. So for animals, at least for pigs, you need well more than value 1.

Further testing shows that even an implement model such as Bredal K105 disappears within reasonable distance along with John Deere 6R 350 (I think) tractor. Yeah value 1 is way too low for any sort of large scale farming on larger terrains.

Edit 3:

Next game restart test was with <lodDistanceCoeff>1.5</lodDistanceCoeff> value. Well obviously 1.5 is better than 1, but even taking a quick walk (OK, run) around my furthest out field shows that neuero 16 million liter grain bin complex still disappears way WAY too soon, it looks artificial, childish and just dumb when such massive landscape object disappears on you.

However where is the balance, I mean how much do you squeeze in the performance argument with expense of good visuals. Game-play always wins, everyone's goal should be rock solid 60FPS, unfortunately that simply doesn't happen, not even on huge FS22 terrains that I build previously. But good solid game-play performance is a must, if you cannot achieve that then its "get the hell out" and go play some properly programmed/configured game.

My previous FS17, FS19 and FS22 (although dunno if fs22 page just links to FS19) settings pages I'm showcasing values like 5 which kind of feels crazy in comparison now, when I'm very conservative trying to keep lodDistanceCoeff as low as possible while still being able to see nice things

Currently I feel like the whole Level Of Detail (LOD) system is off the whack in farmsim games, first of all its just two lods, 0 and 1 as far as I understood it, so high polygon (highpoly) and low polygon (lowpoly) 3d model meshes, and secondly the clipDistance values are written all over the place, most likely by different people and in the team there has been no coordination or even basic understanding what clipDistance does regarding playing nice with other models in a scene.

So while its truly wonderful to get further foliage lod distance coeff values now for game.xml (and in the next game update in-game menu as well), its still kind of too little too late as the whole LOD and clipDistance system is so crazily off the whack.

[ARG_Afb]

hey snake! great that you were able to change settings in game.xml, im gonna try that too